A Glacier Day In The Life - Will Wesson, Rob Heule & Sämi Ortlieb

Last weekend, I headed from Saas Fee to Zermatt to link up with Will Wesson, Rob Heule and Sämi Ortlieb, who are out there filming the Glacier Days web series. It's unavoidable when you meet up with guys you know of from media but not in real life, that you go in with some preconceptions. Having watched the Traveling Circus since day one, my main concerns were 'was I going to be sleeping in a cupboard full of dirty socks?' followed by 'how bad is the raclette smell going to be?'.

As it turned out the guys have got it made in Zermatt, at least by ski bum standards. A nice (and to my pleasant surprise, fairly clean) apartment with a Matterhorn view and a mad fun park to ski in daily. Whacky antics were kept to a minimum during my stay as by the time I got out there, filming deadlines were looming. I think the average skier fails to appreciate how hard their favourite skiers work for their admittedly awesome lifestyles. Because the skiing in the episodes speaks for itself, here's a little Lo-Fi window into the summertime euroworld of a pro ski bum.

Glacier Days start when Rob gets up and makes a far better breakfast than anyone else can be bothered to make, waking everybody else in the process. He then takes his morning smoke with a view...

(This is always the time in the Glacier Days flat)

...then everyone struggles out the apartment at different times and skates to the lift. This is Will, who waited for me, the view is still good.

The Lift ride is defined by how well peoples Ipods are connecting to Outdoor Tech Bluetooth speakers that day. Also the Matterhorn again.

Quick stop off at a Glacial Lake for Will's morning swim...

...and then the work starts on an epic relay camera line, a race against time since the lifts close at 1...

... at which point the hike session on the most frustrating park rail ever starts, it generally lasts until nobody can stand up. Between the crew there must have been 500 hits over the course of 3 days. That's a lot of hiking at 12,000ft...

... and then you ski through rivers back down to the lift...

... to the evening media session, answering emails and other assorted work...

The end result is some killer edits, and some tired legs. These guys are everything that is right with skiing, creative, friendly, dedicated and different. Check out the two edits thus far and keep an eye out for 2 more to come!

The stir crazy soul dreams of leaving the hum of office space behind in exchange for the whir of passing asphalt. Some actually make the move to a mobile lifestyle, packing anything & everything needed to log adventures in between the click of the odometer and now, #Vanlife seems to be all the rage nowadays. But before it was in vogue to criss cross the country in an #adventuremobile, curated Instagram account in tow, some were already out & ahead of the curve.